tended to help IFC clients acquire land and other governmentowned agribusiness assets. In western Ukraine, for example, IFC invested in a multifaceted trader-processor involved in various agricultural markets: seeds, crop protection, fertilizers, machinery, spare parts, commodity trading, transportation, and farming. This investment supports the government’s decree “On Accelerating Reform of the Agricultural Sector of the Economy” by making the breakup of Ukraine’s collective farms economically feasible. Under a one-stop shop concept, the company distributes a full range of agricultural inputs and services to more than 6,500 farms, which account for 4 million of the approximately 34 million hectares of arable land available in Ukraine. These investments have achieved generally satisfactory DO/IO ratings. The Latin America and the Caribbean Region has dominated this activity with 43 percent of investment commitments, followed by Europe and Central Asia (20 percent); only 2 projects out of 20 were located in agriculturebased economies (in Côte d’Ivoire and Lao PDR).
dia. The aim of these projects was to reduce poverty among laborers at 24 tea plantations in Assam and West Bengal by implementing a sustainable employee-owned plantation model and providing technical and business training. The ownership scheme was rapidly oversubscribed: applications were received from 58 percent of the company’s daily workers, 83 percent of the monthly rated workers, 97 percent of the nonmanagement staff, and 100 percent of the management staff. One of the advisory service projects also employed an additional 3,000 youths, after over a decade of creating no new employment opportunities (see also box 3.11).
Transport and Marketing Infrastructure The inadequacy of roads and marketing infrastructure has hindered the development of agricultural activities in many developing countries. While access to markets is also affected by international trade and tax policies (Anderson 2009), this section focuses on physical and communication infrastructure. Primary roads, railways, warehouses, ports, and airports are important for movement of goods over long distances and for access to import and export markets. Rural and secondary roads are critical for linking farms and villages to local markets. Electronic communication networks provide farmers with up-to-date market and price information. An ongoing IEG evaluation of information and communications technology will examine World Bank Group support for information and communication technology regulation and infrastructure.
Satisfactory results have been achieved when IFC has combined advisory services for access with follow-up investments in traderprocessors. IFC has achieved satisfactory results when it has combined access to assets advisory service projects with follow-up investments in trader-processors. Examples of this type of support are the combination of two advisory service projects and a follow-up investment in a company in Ingure 2.1
FIGURE 3.7 Performance of the Bank Transport Subsector in the Evaluation Portfolio, Fiscal 1998–2008 100 90
91
87
82
80
74
70 Percent
60 50
42
40 30
25
20 10 0 Agriculturebased
Transforming
Urbanized
Sources: World Bank data and evaluation calculations. Note: Darker bars represent percentage that achieved the physical transport intervention, the lighter bars represent those that reported achievement in agricultural production resulting from the transport component as a percentage of projects that intended to do so.
World Bank Group Activities and Results
|
51